This question as it is being applied to memetics is, as Stephen said,
no different from how it has been applied to probably every other
field of scientific inquiry in human history.
"To what extent are scientists expected to be divorced from the moral/
ethical consequences of their work?" True pure science recognizes no
morality, but human scientists do not operate according to true pure
science -- fortunately or unfortunately. Some of us are of the
opinion (i.e. memetic programming) that scientists -- memeticists --
should, at least to some degree, direct the results of their work in
order to constrain the evil uses to which it may be put.
Others, perhaps, are of the opposite view, that scientists are to be
amoral; that they function as dispassionate media by which Truth is
conducted from the realm of the unknown to the realm of the known.
-- John Porter jporter@btg.com